The agency had accused the Canadian-British businessman of paying $67m in bribes to the former managers of Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) in order to secure billion-dollar business contracts.

Low budgets might well mean an inability to send out mandates to expensive law firms. But its decision to delegate its investigation to a group of lawyers acting for Dahdaleh’s opponent in a US case seemed odd.

Judge Loraine-Smith certainly thought so. He also slammed the SFO for calling as witnesses the two Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld lawyers representing Alba in a US action and laid the blame at its door for their refusal to testify.